how they shine for you
by meggie272
Summary: Arthur dreams, and it's of stars, and love, and Merlin. Merlin/Arthur, Merlin BBC 'verse.


_Notes: This is basically just trippy gay dream frolicking. I think that's all the warning needed. Takes place in the Merlin BBC 'verse. _

Arthur Pendragon dreams one night.

It is very different.

He doesn't usually dream of such things, but Arthur's the Prince after all, and he can't be fazed by a new situation. It's important that he takes his bearings and figures out what exactly is going on.

He's standing in…a clearing. Tall trees all around, spiralling black up into the night, - it must be night, because it's dark everywhere and cold, bitey cold. Grass under his bare feet, wet with…dew? The bottoms of his feet are starting to feel a sort of an icy pain, and he's never had a dream as vivid as this. He digs his toes into the freezing grass, and it slides between them.

Arthur looks down and realises he's not wearing much at all. This is a familiar aspect of his nighttime adventures, and he actually feels a little comforted – except for the fact that it's chilly, so the wiry hairs on his chest and arms are standing up, and he's dotted with little hard goosebumps.

"Arthur!"

Merlin's high, delighted voice rings out, breaking the clear, crystal silence, and Arthur can't help but exhale with relief. Because there's Merlin, appearing out from behind a tree, and he looks perfectly normal. Except he isn't wearing much either but Arthur's seen Merlin stripped to the waist before, when they've had to bathe in the rivers or pull off each other's clothes to treat a wound.

He's so pale under the wash of moonlight, he seems to glow. Bony shoulders, the familiar outline of ribs, the lines and dips of his hipbones, they all shine.

Merlin's eyes are burning bright in the whiteness of his face and his mouth is cherry red – so's the tip of his nose. It's like he's drunk, but he's standing straight, so it must just be the cold.

"Hello, Merlin," Arthur says carefully and slowly. "What are we doing here?"

Merlin spreads his thin arms wide. "I'm not sure, but isn't it nice?"

"Bit chilly," Arthur mutters.

Merlin steps closer and grins, that sort of triangular grin he has that puts Arthur in the mind of a delighted three-year-old and can be very annoying at times. "Come on, sire! Surely your princely strength can handle this!"

"Of course!" Arthur says affrontedly.

There's a bit of silence, in which Merlin looks around. Eventually Arthur says, "I'm dreaming."

"Ohhhhh," Merlin says knowledgeably, as if it all makes sense now. "Well, nice location, my lord."

"You keep saying that. Just seems like a bunch of trees to me."

"But look at the stars!" Merlin grabs Arthur's hand – he's surprisingly warm, actually – and points their arms upwards. For the first time Arthur looks up at the night sky.

It's…well…it's a night sky. Piercing little bits of white scattered across something that looks like neverending velvet, a moon drifting. Arthur's never really seen what all the poets say there is to see in the night sky. It's just…things, up there. Gaius explained it to him once. Nothing special about it.

Merlin seems to absolutely love it. Of course, that would make sense. He's an unearthly creature at times, and sometimes Arthur thinks he doesn't quite belong on this world. He's gazing upwards and he is so raptured, so full of delight, his eyes wide and bright. He doesn't seem content to just look, so he drops Arthur's hand and reaches up and plucks one of the bright little stars, right out of the sky.

"…woah," says Arthur. "How did you…?"

"I'm not sure," Merlin breathes. He holds it cupped in his hands. It glows, a tiny white piece of…well…glow. It casts illumination on his face, cuts shadows under his cheekbones.

Arthur feels uneasy. "Merlin…you've never been able to do that before."

"No. No, I haven't." Merlin is thrilled, you can tell. Idiot.

"So how come you can do it now?"

"You said it yourself, sire, it's a dream."

Arthur grunts.

"Thank you, my lord," Merlin adds after a pause, looking back up at him. "I've always wanted to hold one of these."

"Well…" Arthur wants to tell him to go and muck out some stables or something, but there's no stables around and Merlin looks so _happy, _how could he?

Merlin grins down at the star, lifting it closer to his face. It reflects in his eyes and Arthur's actually quite content to just watch, until Merlin sticks his tongue out and _licks _it.

"Urgh! Merlin!"

It sticks to Merlin's tongue, like it's some kind of sweet, and Merlin pokes his tongue out at him and makes a sort of a "bleeeeuhhh" noise, the star shining bright. Merlin's saliva doesn't seem to dim it at all, although if Arthur was a star he's pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate being plucked rudely out of the sky and then stuck in some ignorant manservant's mouth.

Well…but he doesn't follow that train of thought, just rolls his eyes at Merlin's immaturity.

"Honestly, Merlin."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Merlin giggles and spits the star off his tongue back into his hands. He closes his hands around it, and the light shines out between his fingers.

"Hey, look!"

"Wow," Arthur murmurs.

"Arthur, give me your hands. Let's see if it can shine through them too."

So Arthur tentatively wraps his hands around Merlin's, and Merlin pulls him closer quite impertinently, and the starlight shines out through their entangled fingers. Merlin's shaking slightly, his breath is trembly on Arthur's face. Arthur thinks for a moment that…maybe…this dream is important. This scares him, because important things often end, and all of a sudden he desperately wants it, needs it to keep going. He cannot let this moment go, he cannot let go of Merlin and the starlight and the grass crisp and cold under his feet.

So he lets go of Merlin's hands and puts them on either side of Merlin's face instead and kisses him on the mouth.

Merlin squeaks and he sounds like a girl, an idiotic girl who's never been kissed before. That's a familiar noise to the Prince, he's stolen a few kisses in his time, and it never fails to make him delighted. Arthur grins and pulls him closer, and Merlin drops the star, and wraps his arms around the back of Arthur's neck.

The star floats to the ground.

They stay like that, pressed against each other.

And one by one the stars start to fall from the sky, gently burning through the night air, like little angels, little messages, falling around them, landing in the grass.

Merlin gasps delightedly, and pulls Arthur down into the grass, and they fall, and it's cold and wet and hurts a little bit, but they wrap their arms and legs around each other, finding comfort and solidity in the warm forms of each other, in the press of Arthur's broad chest against the thin bird bones of Merlin's body, in the grip of Merlin's long, strong fingers on Arthur's back. Arthur could swear that the falling stars are _singing, _a reverberating hum that's soft and brittle and sweet and painful all at once, and in that moment he thinks he loves Merlin, he really does.

Then he wakes up, and the stars aren't singing to him anymore. There's just his blankets wrapped around him, sticky with sweat, and a vague rattling sound that might be his idiotic manservant breaking something. The sun is piercing through the windows, warming the curve of his bare shoulder, and it's a new day.

This is reality now, and for a second Arthur wants to cry, for the stars, and the redness of Merlin's mouth, and the singing, and that perfect crystallized moment.

But then the memory of the dream slips away, like fish between his fingers, like one of the curls of Gwen's hair, and it's just a feeling, a lingering sensation in his chest, and he puts it down to hunger.


End file.
